


more than you can drink

by littlelooneyluna



Category: Emmerdale, robron
Genre: A lot of feels, Angst, M/M, abuse era fic, back at it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-11-08 16:03:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17984261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlelooneyluna/pseuds/littlelooneyluna
Summary: Set some time during the abuse era: Robert tries to comfort Aaron through a bad day





	more than you can drink

**Author's Note:**

> To be frank, we don’t have enough fics for this era and I shall be writing some just because it’s needed!

 

Aaron’s taken to laying against the sofa like a ball, curled up and face hidden from view. He can hear the goings on of the pub, his mum’s tired voice and Marlon’s big feet running up and down. He’s trying, Aaron should thank him for trying as much as he can to keep things ticking over whilst his mum falls apart.

The thought adds to the gnawing sense of guilt in his stomach and he shuffles further down onto the sofa with ease. He wonders how far he can disappear into it. How far he could disappear at all. 

All those thoughts manage to be broken however when the sound of the back door goes. There’s a small part of him which hates how well he knows the sound of those feet, he doesn’t even need to look up, he just tenses slightly until Robert is sitting on the coffee table in front of him. 

“Thought you’d be at the scrapyard.” Robert whispers, he can’t help the way something inside him is filled with worry. He’s been okay, they’ve been okay, as much as they can be at least. Ryan and the upset of all that misery is still there because it has to be, because he knows that Aaron is trying to build this giant wall back up again and keep some distant between them. He doesn’t blame him, just feels a giant wave of sadness build up right through him and he can’t escape it.

He wants to reach a hand out, let it waver in front of Aaron and see if he’ll reach on. But Aaron doesn’t want him to be his life jacket, he’s reached out before and drowned because of Robert’s actions.

Aaron disappears again, and Robert can see it in his eyes, the way it almost glazes over completely and makes him seem small and closed off. Robert’s seen this before, he’s seen all of it before and hated himself for putting it there. 

“Didn’t want to go in.” Aaron’s voice is hardly there but yet it sounds like a triumph. It sounds a lot like a triumph, just to get Aaron’s voice filling the room and not telling him to go away.

“Okay.” Robert nods his head. “I just thought you were ...”

“Better?” Aaron shakes his head, the frown on his face manages to overtake every other expression that he wants to get out and Robert cowers under it. “How can I be?”

“I’m sorry.” Robert flaps slightly as he looks at Aaron and tries desperately to think of something to say. He falls into a lapse of silence and Aaron still has his head buried against the soft fabric of the sofa. He doesn’t move.

Robert remembers a time, long before now, when Robert still wore a wedding ring and they were in a comfortable hotel bed. He remembers reaching out after sex and seeing Aaron laying there hardly _there_. He remembers leaving him like that, he sees it now.

He sees the way Aaron’s mind is ticking away and he suddenly wonders if Gordon was always on his mind. Even back then. Even when Robert thought he was somehow making him happy.

It punches through his gut, and he realises that he can’t just wait it out for a few minutes and then grab Aaron by the waist and disappear under the covers until Aaron is shouting his name with pleasure. 

He can’t, he can’t put it right by that and he doesn’t know how else to feel apart from sorry. He feels a lot like a failure too.

“It’s not your stupid brain it’s mine.” Aaron mumbles, because Robert’s a lot of things, he’s done so many bad things but this isn’t his doing. How can it be when all he’s tried to do it help Aaron.

Be this anchor for him in some sort of way, deal with the sensitivity of the way Aaron thinks and feels and acts.

“You’re not stupid.” Robert says adamantly. He searches for something in Aaron’s eyes, maybe he wants him to really believe it, believe beyond his words. Believe in the opposite, that he’s brilliant, or amazing, or something that Robert and him didn’t even have the bravery to call each other when they could. When they were between the sheets, hands on each other and smiles and a soft happiness there.

Robert’s eyes flicker slightly and he bites his lip. “Letting Ross Barton steal the keys of your motor right in front of your face, now _that’s_ stupid.” He brings the memories to the top, the ripples of everything else which followed seem to float around them and Aaron feels the corner of his mouth almost peak. His eyes tell a different story, because they’re still filled with a sadness and Robert knows that he can’t fix that wholly but he can true.

Aaron sniffs. “You always were stupid.” He says, no heaviness in his voice. “No ...”

“Common sense. Just book smart.” Robert remembers an argument between them, something so trivial and stupid and yet almost so domesticated that he thinks of it fondly. 

Anyone would have thought they were just a normal couple, mouthing off as they got out the car and walked towards the hotel still bickering about where exactly they could or couldn’t park. Apparently Robert didn’t look at the signs properly, apparently it was all very clear and straightforward. 

Aaron smiles, because he’s remembering it too. He has that memory, of course he does, it’s alongside others that he has locked away though because he doesn’t have the space for them. They seem to all spill out just after a nightmare though, because he wills himself to think of them.

To think of something happiness as opposed to all this sadness buried deep inside him.

When Aaron looks up, moves away from his memory, he sees that Robert has a slight smirk on his face and he sighs a little. He gulps and tries to rise up but Robert leans up and the worry on his face at the struggle for Aaron is enough to make the younger man lay back again.

Robert sits back on the coffee table and Aaron breathes out. “You can’t fix this.” He says, he doesn’t have any heat in his voice and he promises himself that he isn’t going to raise his voice or make Robert look like a kicked puppy over this. “Just ‘cause I smiled doesn’t mean ...”

“I know that.” Maybe he does, Aaron wants him to. He really just wants him to know that he can’t get inside Aaron’s brain and make it all go away. “I just ... if I can do anything then I ...”

“You already did.” Ryan, that mess is there and Robert instantly looks guilty.

He wondered how long it would take for it to be mentioned, despite how sorry he is. “I’m sorry about Ryan.”

“I didn’t mean ... my mum said you were going to tell the police it was all you, to stop it messing with the case.” Aaron says, he doesn’t know why there’s tears in his eyes over it but there are and he’s still shocked over it. He remembers the man who chose to drive his brother insane over going to prison.

Robert looks like a deer in headlights against it because he didn’t necessarily want Aaron knowing any of that because they’d be no point in it. He ducks his head slightly and then nods. “Well you know how I feel. Couldn’t not do that.” He says awkwardly.

Aaron does know, or he knows what Robert has said. He loves him. He’s in love with him. They’re two very different things really but they overlap for Robert apparently and it makes it even more confusing.

Aaron, with all the misery and sadness of his life at the moment, cannot contemplate the idea of Robert being in love with him. Still. That idea is even more terrifying, Robert always loving him. Them being the same, feeling the same, being on the same page after all this time.

He remembers being in the park, he remembers telling Robert that he wants to give it a go, of course he still wants this. He blushes at the memory, he contemplates whether his behaviour has made Robert believe that the desire there has gone. He wouldn’t blame him if he did.

There’s a part of him which feels like he needs to show Robert he still wants that, but then every time he tries to even think about it, his brain feels like it’s going to explode.

For now, he’ll settle for nodding at Robert’s words and not telling him that he’s wrong because that wouldn’t do any good for either of them. He shivers slightly and watches as Robert finds the crumpled blanket at Aaron’s feet and brings it up over him.

Again.

Robert and blankets and comfort seem to swirl together in his mind and he catches at Robert’s wrist as he goes to move back towards the coffee table.

“I know you love me.” Aaron says. It means something, in amongst the wave of all of this, it means something because Robert’s eyes flicker.

It means that he’s proven that somehow. Robert knows that Aaron’s always been one for actions rather than words, he’s always thrown that in his face and Robert has always been at a loss as to what that really means until now.

He feels Aaron’s thumb brush lightly against his knuckles and then he moves his hand away and his face turns bright red. He has tears in his eyes and they swim about, rushing towards the edge and then falling back again. They don’t leave; don’t fall down his face or anything but it’s enough for Robert to realise that he’s emotional over this.

Robert’s not stupid, he doesn’t expect Aaron to say anything back. He just nods his head and settles for telling him that he always will, that he isn’t going anywhere.

Aaron bites at his lip, he wonders what he looks like. He probably looks a state, snotty nose and teary, puffy red eyes and equally red face. He understands suddenly the way love can run deeper.

He doesn’t really know what takes over him but he pulls Robert by his stupid leather jacket, and he’s hit by the familiarity of holding the shiny fabric, but he just kisses his cheek. Soft, delicate skin meeting his chapped lips. He holds it for a second before leaning away and watching Robert’s shock slowly disappear.

They’re shaking, his hands, he dips them into his jacket pocket but he can’t hide the blush in his cheeks.

“You get some rest yeah?” Robert says after what feels like a lifetime of just staring at each other. He stands, legs feeling a little uneasy as he gets towards the back door and out into the fresh air.

Aaron somehow sleeps easy.

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
